A Micrimachined Nanoprobe device and Its Application to Visual Observation of Nano Phenomena in a Transmission Electron Microscope

摘要

We present a fabrication method of a new nanoprobe device and demonstrate in-situ observation of a fiedld emission tip in a transmission electron microscope(TEM) using it. In the device fabrication, we employed a combination process of an anisotropic wet etching of silicon and local oxidation of silicon technique, which is enable us to make opposing Si probes whose radii are less than 10nm. Although the gap between the probes can be determinged by photolithographic pattern, we can obtain less than 1μm initial gap without a high precision lithography. In addition, we have described a nanoprobe device integrated with thermal expasin actuators. The first visual observation of an emission tip breakdown is also reported.